File spoon-archives/marxism-general.archive/marxism-general_1998/marxism-general.9801, message 17


Date: Sun, 4 Jan 1998 01:41:20 -0500
From: malecki-AT-algonet.se (Robert Malecki)
Subject: M-G: COCKROACH! #107


COCKROACH! #107
A EZINE FOR POOR AND WORKING CLASS PEOPLE.
WE HAVE NOTHING TO LOSE BUT OUR CHAINS.
It is time that the poor and working class people
have a voice on the Internet.
http://algonet.se/~malecki
http://w1.934.telia.com/~u93402111/
-------------------------------------------------------
1. Death of an American Trotskyist.
2. Fake Trotsky Faq! "Don't reinstate me"
3. New Zealand "reforms"?
-------------------------------------------------------
Death of an American Trotskyist
Jim writes;
>
>Good question. Someone on this list made the point that the great
>difficulty of the Trotskyist movement was that the quality of its
>personnel was so poor. Basically all of the most active workers
>gravitated towards the much larger and more influential Communist and
>Social Democratic Parties.
>
>Nonetheless, without Trotsky's critique of the Soviet Union, revolution
>would have been forever identified with Stalinism. As long as Stalinism
>was a real force in the labour and liberation movements, then Trotskyism
>had something to tell us about the subordination of revolution to
>'socialism in one country' or the disastrous 'stages' theory of
>bourgeois national liberation. Tragically the relative isolation of the
>Trotskyists, and their own failure to develop any theory of any account
>meant that the valuable insights that they did organize around tended to
>get lost in the opportunistic alliance with Stalinism, reformism, third
>world revolution, students revolts etc etc.
>
>I think it is easy to forget now just how grotesque the influence of
>Stalinism was no the left. Anyone who remembers having to deal with such
>meaningless crap as the Varga theory of immiseration, Eurocommunism,
>Value theory under capital, the Indian mode of production debate, the
>support for the middle class pacifist movement, the Hitler-Stalin pact
>and all the other monstrosities of=A0 Stalinism will value Trotsky's
>critique.
>
>However, with the defeat of the Soviet Union, such intellectual gains as
>Trotskyism did represent are all but exhausted. Trotsky was right about
>fascism, the soviet union, Spain, the British General Strike ('all power
>to the general council of the TUC' - I ask you!) - which is all very
>relevant to the writing of history. And Santayana was right about not
>forgetting history, but it is equally important not to live in the past.
>The Trotskyists in my experience have failed to look critically at what
>is new in the post-cold war situation. They continue to talk about a
>'struggle for leadership' that is meaningless in today's depoliticised
>conditions.
>
>As long as there was a Stalinist regime in the Soviet Union wrecking the
>possibilities of revolutionary action, then I would be happy to call
>myself a Trotskyist. But not now, because Trotskyism failed to develop a
>positive theory beyond its critique of Stalinism that would survive
>Stalinism.
>
Quite amazingly that Trotsky was right on just about everything! Then goes
on to claim that the "trotskyists wound up in and the getting lost in all
kinds of opportunistic a " alliance with Stalinism, reformism, third world
revolution, students revolts etc etc.".
This is not true. What we had in the post war "Trotskyist" movement is a
large number of groups leaving Trotskyism and liquidating the program
towards Stalinism and reformism. But they was not Trotskyism.
Jim also blames Trotsky and the Trotskyists for holding onto the leadership
question. In fact this is not a question of Trotsky but one of the central
pillars of Lenin and Leninism. It was he who formulated the theory starting
with "What Is to be Done? if I recall. In fact it was Trotsky who was a
Menshevik on the party question...
And no new theoretical contributions from Trotskyists? Now that is false
also. In fact it was the Spartacists who brought us the theory of
"interpenetrating peoples" and this was a great theoretical step forward..

Finally all those questions that you say Trotsky was right on encompassed
far much more then being polemics against the Stalinists. In many ways it
was a program of action and tactics to avoid the disasters that the
Stalinist led the International workers down the road to. All the central
pillar besides all those Communist tactics was the thread of a "Bolshevik
Party and leadership to guide the struggle..

So in reality What you are saying is not against Trotsky but Lenin and the
Bolshevik Party. Trotsky was just and extension of those politics connected
to the Leninist theory on the leadership question..
And I believe that the ICL goes in those historical conquests towards
creating a reforged International. Because without a Communist International
that has this theory in its backbone and the historical experience, program
and tactics then we are dead..
Now you mention something that might counter pose this in your letter by
saying: "The Trotskyists in my experience have failed to look critically at what
>is new in the post-cold war situation. They continue to talk about a
>'struggle for leadership' that is meaningless in today's depoliticised
>conditions."
Fair enough and straightforward. But please tell us what you think is new in
the "post cold-war situation" and how we should proceed..Because basically
you letter says to me Trotsky was right about everything but now all is
lost. We should not forget history but understand the new situation and how
to tackle it.Please tell us your analysis and someway out..

So far on this list the only thing new is a rehash of all kinds of
neo-Stalinist and reformist solutions with both the Social Democracy, the
now dead Stalinists and pretty much of the far left leaping to the right
away from any kind of perspective of proletarian revolution. And all kinds
of post Stalinist and reformist unity schemes on fundamentally reformist
back to the good old time stuff which is absolutely impossible. Not to
mention the same old stage theory stuff and popular fronts and
anti-imperialist fronts of the third world which become even more of a
reactionary pipedream now that the USSR no longer exists..

So please Jim tell us your story, your analysis, your easy out. I want to
hear you speak about and alternative to the Trotskyism that was right but is
now all wrong..

Or are you one of those leftist who is giving up by saying a plague on all
your houses the situation is hopeless? Unfortunately poor and working class
people have no choice....

Warm Regards
Bob Malecki

In this discussion on the contributions of Trotskyism I would add what
seems to have been overlooked by both Jim and Bob, namely Trotsky's
analysis of the degenerated workers states and the restoration of
capitalism.=A0 Jim says without Trotsky we would still think that Stalin
equals socialism. Not so, plenty of liberals and social democratic
understood this. What Trotsky made possible was the separation of the
Stalinist regime from the gains of October, and the unconditional defense of
those gains. Without such a program it was not possible to lead workers in
the defense of the revolution and to keep the heritage of Marx and Lenin alive.

Hence Trotskyism did develop a theory which linked the defense of the
revolution to the world revolution via the theory of permanent revolution
and the role of the vanguard party. The isolation of Trotskyism despite its
program and party was not just a
tragedy. It was the consequence of Stalinism acting as a
counter-revolutionary force against the working class in its attempts to
defend its bureaucratic privileges, but finally under the impact of an all
encompassing world capitalism. It was this Stalinist [and Euro-Marxist]
misleadership that negatively defined the crisis of leadership then, and
continues to do so today.=A0 To say that Trotskyism therefore developed no
theory or practice because of its identification of the crisis of leadership
as the expression of the crisis of imperialism, is quite wrong. It is either
to credit the working class with the ability to spontaneously generate a
successful revolutionary movement, or the Stalinist, petty  bourgeois forces
to supply the missing leadership.=A0 Both tendencies of course invaded
post-war Trotskyism as a consequence of its defeat at the
hands of Stalinism.

Finally, Trotskyist's don't understand the post-cold-war world?=A0 Who are we
kidding here. These lists as inundated with unregenerated crypto Stalinists
who cannot face the loss of the SU.=A0 And whose adaptation to the loss is a
generalized democratization which is then projected onto the working class. 
Hence the insistence by Trotskyists on these lists that the battle today
remains that between Bolshevism and Menshevism.=A0 Who was is that not only
identified the contradictory character of the Degenerated workers states,
and who was it that predicted either political revolution or capitalist
restoration? It seems that only Trotskyism is in the position to draw a
Marxist balance sheet on the period and understand the causes of the
current reactionary period without losing sight of the underlying
contradictory tendencies that push workers and the oppressed into more and
intensified opposition to the rule of capital. And as always, without a new
international to lead workers in this new fight we are resigning ourselves
to the passive contemplative Marxism of academia and the bureaucracy.
Dave.
-------------------------------------------------------
<< At this point we don't have suspensions, not that couldn't be a
 possibility. The moderators have the option to put subscribers in a
 restricted posting status (meaning their posts have to be approved)
 temporarily or permanently. We have then have tried to explain and deal
 with problems off-list. Such was the case with Comrade Brown.

 In his response to being unsubscribed, Comrade Brown neither denied
 collaborating with a source hostile to this project, nor showed any
 interest in reinstatement on the list.

 Sally
=A0 >>
Dear Sally,
=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0 Please ignore comrade Ron's request for my reinstatement, as it seems
you have.=A0=A0 I thank him muchly for standing up for me and that is very
principled.=A0 However, Im not interested in receiving confidential mail from
a bunch of literary Mensheviks with a Healyite security fetish.=A0 Let me make an
analogy.
=A0=A0=A0
=A0 I used to be part of the Spartacists and as a member I read their
internals.=A0 Once I left the group I made a detailed report on stuff I knew
about the group to the Bolshevik tendency -- of course, nothing I knew was
tactically of any significance but such reports give groups like the BT some
kind of picture of what their main opponent group is like from the inside.
=A0=A0=A0=A0
 Be that as it may, I didn't run around trying to paw through the
Spartacist garbage cans or plant listening devices at members homes.=A0=A0 Since
leaving the Sparts, I of course, have none of their internals and no
interest in going out and finding them.=A0 If someone like Jan Norden who was
recently thrown out of the Sparts sent me an SL internal, I would read it,
but Im sure he just as I, doesn't go out searching for internal material
today from the
Sparts.=A0 Fair is fair.
=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0
 Unlike internal information from a group that at least pretends to be a
democratic centralist vanguard regroupment oriented group etc -- which might
have some confidential importance -- nothing that was posted on the Toilet
Paper project has any conceivable reason for being confidential.=A0=A0 None of
it has anything to do with present day political organizing.=A0=A0 Personally I
had no idea that forwarding mails to Malecki was grounds for being kicked out.

 However, if I had known that, I would have unsubscribed myself voluntarily.
I don't want any info from anyone that would be scared of me sharing it with
Malecki.=A0 That is, unless that person and I make an agreement and then I
will respect it.=A0 As I have always respected all agreements I have made with
anyone.=A0
=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0

 The facts are the facts.=A0 The toilet paper project doesn't want any
Trotskyists or anyone who talks to Trotskyists.=A0 They want agent baiters
like Proyect and retired gangsters like Wohlforth.=A0 I personally know people
who did time in Wohlforth's Workers League, Sally.=A0 You didn't have to go
through that organization and its withering demoralization, and fortunately
I didn't either.=A0=A0 However,=A0 I am very aware of the extreme real damage that
Wohlforth
did to the American left.=A0 Real lasting damage.=A0 Now he wants to play elder
statesman and be a puny left version of George Mcgovern or Richard Nixon...
and it seems that he is welcome in your Menshevik sandbox, while the tiny
clot of Trotskyists like me and Malecki who still are trying to build
Trotskyism are banned for no reason.
=A0=A0=A0=A0
Everyone admitted that Malecki was banned for no reason.=A0 Malecki even
said he comments about destroying the Toilet Paper project=A0 "Politically"
were made solely because of his exclusion.=A0 I said that if Malecki was let
in and he broke rules I would support his expulsion.=A0 But that wasn't
enough..=A0=A0 You had to expel me as well.=A0=A0 Thats fine.=A0
=A0=A0=A0=A0
What is totally laughable about your toilet paper sandbox is that with
the lack of polemics anyone can make any lie they want to.=A0 Take Wohlforth's
comments on Myra Tanner Weiss -- that she defended Robertson from expulsion.
=A0
 True, but what was little Timmy's position.=A0=A0 He was the one that got
Robertson and himself expelled as he attempted to do goon work for Farrell
Dobbs against all the other oppositions like the Weissites and Swabeckites
-- see Marxist Bulletin num 2 by the Spartacists.=A0=A0=A0 Oh little Timmy always
the Marxoid technician.=A0 Well he is welcome.=A0=A0 Of course, perhaps you don't
recall or know that Wohlforth joined SWP goons in physical assaults on
Progressive Labor and Spartacist cadre as they tried to protest the
appearance of pro cold war UAW bureaucrat at an anti war convention.=A0=A0
=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0
 You accept postings from the disgusting agent baiter Louis Proyect who has
been slithering around the net for months now if not longer trying to play
the role of federal prosecuter against Malecki, a man, who whatever his
faults, has paid dearly and bitterly for his political stands.=A0 This
assenine Proyect who like the SWP in its rightward moving centrist days
because they served as goons against the left and brought democratic
politicians into their yellow ribbon class collaborationist marches -- to
bring our boys home.
=A0
 Well what about the North Vietnamese boys who were being killed 20 - 1.=A0=A0
=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0
 No no, keep your Menshevik sandbox.... I want no part in it.=A0 I was
fortunate to run into a few good people to keep up a correspondence with and
that was all I wanted anyway.=A0 I have no particular interest in this dry
chronicling of this split and that split -- mostly from renegade
organizations.=A0 With your historical "method" you could easily claim Hitler
and Mussolinni were good socialists because they described themselves as
such.=A0=A0=A0 Lyndon Larouche is put on the same plane as Cannon because they
both called themselves Trotskyists.=A0=A0 So you embrace the same sickening
petit bourgeois pragmatist method that Trotsky fought to the end of his life
against.
=A0=A0=A0
 With your historical "method" you could easily put Santa Claus and King
Arthur on the same level as the writings of Tacitus and Thucydides.=A0=A0 After
all, they are both stories about people.=A0=A0 You want to be objective about
the Healyite Security and the Fourth International campagn that labeled the
rightward moving reformists of the SWP as CIA/KGB agents and no less the
murders of Trotsky.=A0=A0 So you put mythology on the same level as history -- a
method which is delightfully used by the far right.=A0 You reject science and
embrace myth -- without even a passing sigh.=A0 This has nothing in common
with Marxism and historical materialism.=A0 It is one thing to fight a
ceaseless battle against mechanistic reductionism of dialectical materialism
as I have done.=A0 It is another thing to reject science all together in the
name of petit bourgeois "objectivity."=A0=A0 -- If you think Im being extreme
about this please read Peter Novick's book That Noble Dream -- it will do
you good I assure you.
You do not own Trotsky's heritage.=A0 You can make your little bucks off a CD
Rom or whatever.=A0 I don't oppose your little pedantic scribblings.=A0 I will
gladly check out your website --=A0 I hope you don't consider that
confidential.=A0 I will make use of any public materials you present to the
working class.=A0 But you do not own or represent Trotsky's heritage even
slightly.=A0 Trotsky belongs to the world's toiling masses, many of whom have
never made a telephone call much less played around with the web.=A0 Trotsky
belongs the billions of humans of this planet who own no property at all and
are force to sell their labor power -- and know it.=A0=A0 The proletarians who
have no illusions that they are going to get rich quick.=A0 And, he belongs to
the very few intellectuals like Malecki and like me, who fight for his real
programmatic and theoretical conquests.=A0 He will always belong to proletarian
militants who haven't lost all hope, despite all the pressure of bourgeois
society that always weighs so heavily on our heads.=A0=A0 He will never belong
to sand box Menshevik scribblers. One on these days, perhaps you will see
the signficance of what I am saying,
Sally.=A0 Once you asked me what is required to join the GTL 40% off.=A0 And I
basically said, anyone can participate in what we are doing except Nazis.

However, our program is not for sale, nor in the present day climate for
democratic vote.=A0 We raise the banner of the Fourth International proudly --
and at an incredible discount not seen in years.=A0 Ironically, the
requirements for particpating in your Menshevik toilet paper sandbox seem
too high.=A0 I was saying that you allow Wohlforth the Healyite goon to be in
your sandbox...I guess that makes sense, since your security fetish seems to
be about on the level of the Security and the Fourth International campaign...

Thats all folks....
Comrade Brown=A0=A0 Generic Trotskyist League 40%off
-------------------------------------------------------
New Zealand "reforms"?
As I did receive a note from the moderator of Thraxis who wanted to discuss
a few things off list, I noticed he was from New Zealand. After replying to
his quite honest letter and sending it off I realized that I actually had
something important to say..And naturally did not keep his address. But in
fact this is my first intervention on the list. The other two letters I sent
were in fact and answer to the provocation which Proyect crossed posted to
Thraxis and do not count. Naturally if Proyect continues to provacate by
sending the latest fart of the now Stalinist run M-I list he will certainly
be answered in kind...Anyhow...
A delegation of Swedish Social Democrats in power here in Sweden are now
down in New Zealand getting the grand tour of New Zealand politics. And as
it is linked into the discussion going on here about economies I thought I
should take it up.
It appears that the Swedish Social democratic delegation is in reality down
in NZ to learn about the system used by the present government which
effectively builds a "tier" system of wages-- which for capitalism means
driving down wage labor and splitting the class along high pay, middle pay
and low paid jobs..According to the news here NZ has been particularly
successful in this maneuver and the Swedish Social Democratic class traitors
want to learn how it was done!
As this is connected to the present drive in different parts of the world by
social democratic governments and trade union bureaucracies as
administrators of the capitalist/imperialist drive by different imperialist
spheres to create economic spheres at the expense of the working class
connected to downsizing and wripping apart the welfare states I though our
NZ moderator could give some background, not only on the program, but the
why's and what's and needs of the NZ capitalist class in this part of the
world...
At least here in Sweden the big picture is to use this "reform" is to
increase profits in order to do two things.
1. To join the wild west atmosphere capitalist counter-revolution which has
taken place in the east (the Baltic States, Poland, the former USSR)..Labor
their is probably cheaper then in the former South East Asia "Tiger"
economies these days but enormous capital investment in machines and
technical equipment is need by the capitalists in order to set up operations
and use these countries as a cheap labor market in increasing
inter-imperialist rivalry..
2. Of playing the monetary union card of building and economic sphere and
fortress Europa based on the Geman Central Bank and its drive to build the
Fourth Reich!
Because it is not Sweden or France or Italy --But Germany which is the
economic powerhouse in this part of the world as is America is in its part
of the world and Japan in its part of the world..
So what is the game play for NZ and Australia? As I can't see these
ex-english colonies becoming equal partners or even mini partners in Japans
drive in preparations in for the next imperialist confrontation. Whereas the
Swedes historically have always been pro German..
I think that the discussions here must be far more linked to living Social
and Economic reality rather then the rather dusty economist exercise it
presently has the form of here. All this in ara but unless we poor and
working class people can relate to this shit most of your theory even for
those few who really want to make a revolution on this list are in deep shit
without a paddle..
Another thing that bugs me is Doug's pretentions of being a "Marxist"
economist with his recent book "Wall Street". I shall in the future come
back to this as I am now in the process of collecting material in Workers
Vanguard which I believe points out the many fallacies in Henwoods work. And
the material they are producing, although quite steep for me is very
interesting and certainly should be explored. Who knows maybe somebody will
learn something including me!
Warm regards
Bob Malecki
-------------------------------------------------------
Check Out My HomePage where you can,
Read or download the book! Ha Ha Ha McNamara,
Vietnam-My Bellybutton is my Crystalball!
And Now the International Communist League Page!
Just push on the "Spartacist" Button.
Or Get The Latest Issue of,
COCKROACH, a zine for poor and working-class people.
NEW! "RADIO TIME"=A0 In cooperation with Straitfacts, Bob
Malecki will be giving occasional reports to Straitfacts
Radio audiences in the United States. Text for these
reports now on line.
http://w1.934.telia.com/~u93402111/
-------------------------------------------------------



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